Hershey's Salty Snack Supply Lags Demand Into 2027
Snack makers relying on multipacks and bulk salty formats should expect tight supply until new Hershey lines come online in 2027.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Consumer Goods
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Hershey is struggling to meet demand for its salty snack brands, including LesserEvil, SkinnyPop, Pirate's Booty and Dot's Pretzels, which together brought in $1.3 billion in fiscal 2025. The supply constraints matter to consumer-goods operators because they show how fast demand can outrun capacity in a category where competitors are also losing volume.
Why it matters
Sales of many snack foods are declining as GLP-1 weight loss drugs, which suppress cravings, gain popularity, so Hershey's pressure is partly a category-wide demand shift rather than a single-brand problem. Hershey's response, adding manufacturing lines in 2027, reflects a bet that salty snack demand will remain strong enough to justify new capital spending.
Hershey's salty snack portfolio generated $1.3 billion in fiscal 2025, with Dot's contributing $626 million and rising 9% in the third quarter. Supply shortfalls in Dot's and multipacks have constrained output for at least two quarters, and the company has not yet quantified how much demand went unfilled.
The players
Hershey
The Hershey Company is a major U.S. packaged-food manufacturer whose portfolio spans chocolate and salty snacks, and its salty brands are a growing part of its business.
The details
Hershey has expanded marketing for its salty snack products, which has increased consumer demand faster than the company's production capacity can respond. Supply problems in Dot's and in multipack formats have limited how much product reaches shelves, and service levels in the third quarter improved over the prior three months but recovered more slowly than the company expected. The planned manufacturing lines slated for 2027 are the company's longer-term fix for that capacity gap.
Timeline
Fiscal 2025: Hershey's salty snack brands generated $1.3 billion in sales.
Over the past at least two quarters: supply challenges limited production of Dot's and multipacks.
Third quarter: service levels improved from the prior three months, but recovery was slower than expected.
2027: Hershey plans to implement additional manufacturing lines.
Market Landscape
The slowdown in snack food demand tied to GLP-1 weight loss drugs is a category-wide trend, not one company's problem. Hershey's decision to add capacity in 2027 positions it to compete for the salty snack demand that remains while peers face the same appetite-suppression headwind.
Operators in snack manufacturing and distribution should plan for capacity constraints in fast-growing SKUs and watch how GLP-1 adoption affects category volumes. Procurement and production planning teams should review multipack and bulk-format supply commitments, since those are where Hershey reports the tightest constraints.
The takeaway
The core operating insight is that demand for salty snacks can outpace capacity even as the broader category slows, so capacity planning matters as much as marketing. Operators should track next-quarter service-level and supply-constraint disclosures from Hershey and peers to judge whether the 2027 capacity additions close the gap.
Further reading
For more on how product demand and supply are shifting across packaged goods, see the Consumer Goods section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Oregon Live.
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